General Electric Co. is losing an important title it has held for more than a century: Dow Jones Industrial Average component.

GE
GE, -1.15%
, which was part of the Dow Jones index
DJIA, +0.37%
when it was started in 1896 and had been a part of the blue-chip portfolio continuously since 1907, is being replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.
WBA, +0.31%
, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Tuesday afternoon.

“The U.S. economy has changed: Consumer, finance, health care and technology companies are more prominent today and the relative importance of industrial companies is less,” David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, explained in Tuesday’s announcement. “Today’s change to the DJIA will make the index a better measure of the economy and the stock market.”

GE has been removed from the index twice previously, but has been a constant presence since replacing Tennessee Coal & Iron in November 1907, the same month Oklahoma became the 46th state in the union. The other companies that were part of the index when GE entered in 1907, none of which are still members: Amalgamated Copper, American Car & Foundry, American Smelting & Refining, American Sugar, Colorado Fuel & Iron, National Lead, Peoples Gas, U.S. Rubber, U.S. Rubber 1st preferred, U.S. Steel and U.S. Steel preferred.

“The DJIA is a price-weighted index, and the range of prices among its 30 constitutes matter. The low price of GE shares means the company has a weight in the index of less than one-half of 1 percentage point,” the announcement noted. “Walgreens Boots Alliance’s share price is higher, and it will contribute more meaningfully to the index.”

Walgreens will have the seventh-lowest weight on the 30-company index and second-lowest market cap, according to Dow Jones Data Group. The switch is set to take effect before the market opens Tuesday, June 26.

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